Valorant’s developers are warning players who frequently go AFK especially on ranked matches to stop or else face serious consequences.
Riot Games noticed that players who go away from their keyboards can really ruin the game, especially during ranked matches. Now, the developers have announced bigger penalties to guarantee that their players remain on their seats.
Severe punishments
Yesterday, the team behind Valorant announced that they are increasing the punishment of AFK players to more severe ones.
AFK, which means “away from keyboard”, is an internet slang which implies to a person who is engaged in a game or chat but is physically not in front of their computers, thus incapable of responding.
One of the penalties to be implemented will be prolonged queuing limits for players who go AFK frequently. Riot says AFK players will receive queuing penalties in the lobby which increases in severity each time the system verifies that they are missing in action.
Steeper penalties are a great addition to the game, especially seeing how common the offense is in beta testing. With just a few months left before Valorant’s official launch, now is the right time to do these changes.
We're shipping a change that increases penalties for AFKs, which include longer queue restrictions for folks to AFK for multiple rounds. We'll keep an eye on these restrictions when there's service instability, but please commit to the games you queue up for.
— VALORANT (@PlayVALORANT) May 13, 2020
Considerations
Riot Games took into consideration that not all players who go AFK are doing it on purpose. Developers promised to look deeper into AFK behaviors before implementing punishments on an account.
Sometimes, a player can experience bad internet connection or device issues that prevent them from continuing the game. Given the long duration of one Valorant match and that AFK player cannot be filled in, this should be a promising change to the game.
It is still uncertain what other penalties will be given to repeat offenders. Banning a player in matchmaking or lowering his rank can be possible penalties but this hasn’t been confirmed yet.
The Valorant gaming community has been praising the good news so far. However, curious players are also asking if the punishments will be the same for ranked and normal matches.
My last 20 unrated games had someone leave mid game. Hopefully this helps
— C9 PVPX (@PVPX_) May 13, 2020
Nearing release
As of now, Valorant’s beta testing phase is exclusively for the PC. However, PlayStation and Xbox users can hope for a future release, probably on their next generation consoles.
Riot Games stated that they are not closing Valorant’s doors to port out of other consoles. The developers are only focusing on the PC right now in order to catch bugs and other issues more efficiently.
Nevertheless, Riot Games’ decision to increase AFK penalties should help keep Valorant a healthy and competitive game.
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